


forgiveness in the weeds

by jonphaedrus



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, Father Figures, Found Family, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 22:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19365487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: Nanu had always had two stone-carved, iron-clad rules for himself, his adages which to live by and keep him honest in whatever farce his life might become:1. Never have children, because he couldn’t fucking take care of himself, let alone another human being, and;2. Do no harm.





	forgiveness in the weeds

Nanu had always had two stone-carved, iron-clad rules for himself, his adages which to live by and keep him honest in whatever farce his life might become:

  1. Never have children, because he couldn’t fucking take care of _himself_ , let alone another human being, and;
  2. Do no harm.



He’d failed #2 enough times that he tried not to think about it and/or keep track of the instances on his hands because he only had ten fingers and he had way more than ten failures, so he’d given it up as a bust for his fortieth. Better to just accept being genuinely a kind of shitty person and move on from there than keep trying to convince yourself/the world/the Tapu that you weren’t a shitty person. It was, in point of fact, a lot easier to be a shitty person who had no idea you were a shitty person than it was to be a self-aware shitty person, because the latter required that you accept that you’d fucked up and hurt other people.

He’d managed #1 solidly his entire life. Kittens _did not count_. No matter how hard his mother went calling them her _grand-cats_. No interest in kids. No long-term relationships that had amounted to anything even vaguely resembling a child. Acerola did not count, because he hadn’t raised her and she’d just stuck the “Uncle” title on of her own volition and he had tried literally everything in his power to make her stop.

No.

Nope.

Nanu was fifty-eight and he was going to be _damed right down to_ _hell_ if he was going to get saddled with any children. Any at all. Definitely not.

And almost certainly not thirty-odd NEETs who had decided to start a gang and come to him whenever they had any problems. Even if they’d somehow fucking decided he was their second dad, or whatever. Not his problem. Someone else’s problem. It was only his problem if he made it his problem.

 

 

He got the call from the Hau’oli police station around two in the morning. He was awake. Nanu leaned backwards over his couch, over the partition, and into the section of the Po police station that had once been the receptionist’s desk. “Gimme that,” he told Hinahina, the Meowth who was currently bent upside down washing her ass. She growled but rolled upright, picked up the landline, and passed it over to him.

“Nanu,” he said, shortly.

“Hi, this is Officer Mahu down at Hau’oli station. We picked up one of those Team Skull kids by the beachfront trying to steal someone’s Toucannon.”

Nanu closed his eyes and silently asked the Tapu for some patience. “Yeah?”

“Uh...we’re holding her in one of the cells. Should we get charges pending?” It was pretty common knowledge at this point that Team Skull Was Nanu’s Problem, Because Nanu Had Made Team Skull His Problem. He let them squat in Po town (“squat” being a loose term, because they did actually pay some nominal rent on the abandoned site, for plausible deniability purposes) and he herded them toward being able to function again in whatever ways they wanted to, and stuck his neck out for them. He was a Kahuna, after all, and _technically_ they were his problem and jurisdiction. So yeah, he had a vested interest, and most of the officers knew that.

“I’ll deal with it,” he said at last. “I’ll be over as soon as I can catch the ferry.” He hung up and lay there, sprawled out on his couch, and watched the small spot of water discoloration that had been inching its way across one of the drop ceiling tiles for the last eight months and looked vaguely like the head of a Budew. He slowly rolled to his feet, scrubbed the back of his neck, and went to get ready to leave the house, picking Melia up as he walked past where the Persian was napping, grabbing the Pokémon under the arms.

He groaned as he dragged his Persian out of bed. Melia gave him an earful about it, growling and grousing. “You’re fat,” Nanu told him. “Come on. We’re going out.”

He snagged his Pokéballs on the way out the door, Melia padding along in his shadow, until he jumped in the door of Nanu’s van and climbed onto the passenger seat and turned to licking his ass, the proper behavior of all annoyed Persians, everywhere.

Since he was picking up a hooligan-slash-miscreant, no Charizard rides. Nanu needed a car to bring the idiot back over to Ula’ula, so he had to drive down to the ferry station, wait for the ferry, nap with his seat leaned all the way back and put a crick in his neck on the way over to Melemele, drive back off the ferry, and drive over to the police station. By the time he got there, it was past dawn, and he really fucking wanted a cup of coffee. Or like, six, ideally.

He banged the door open, got some startled salutes by the officers in the building (Kahuna, Captain of the Ula’ula police, that was him) and got shown back to where the grunt was in the holding cell. She’d had her mask and hat taken, and she was sitting, looking bored, popping bubbles with her gum. She looked up when she heard footsteps, and her eyes widened slightly.

“Here she is,” the officer who had called him said, gesturing at her. “Should we charge her?”

“No. I'll take her home and we can get it sorted out.” Nanu let him unlock the cell. “Come on, Tippy.” She kept staring at him until he tossed her her mask and hat. “Your Golbat stays with me until we talk about this.”

“Ye—Yeah, okay.” She scrambled to her feet and traipsed after him, following him back out of the station as he waved lazily over his shoulder to the other officers.

“I’ll email the paperwork when I get back.” There was a chorus of _thanks_ and _see you later, Nanu_ and _take care going home_ and _come by some other time again_ as he left, Tippy shuffling along in his shadow. “Come on,” he told her, leading her back to his car. “I need coffee. It’s my bedtime and I have to drive. I’ll treat.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, as he opened the passenger seat door and hauled Melia back out, the Persian whining pitifully as Nanu dragged him from where he’d been napping. “Do you, uh, need a hand with—“

“We’re good,” Nanu mumbled, throwing his cat over his shoulder. Melia licked the back of his head. “He’s just fat.” He checked he had Tippy’s Golbat on his belt with his own Pokémon, and they walked down the street to the Center. The sun was just coming up over the ocean, and the glowing shadows the sun cast, blinding up off of the windows of buildings and the black tar of the streets, made Nanu’s tired eyes water, and he squinted into the dawn light. Fuck off.

“So,” he prompted Tippy, as they sat in the café at the Pokémon center. He’d gotten his coffee over-iced and over-shot, and she kept poking vaguely at the whipped cream on her own, as it started to melt down into the hot coffee below. “Tell me what happened. I’ve got the official version.” He patted the file that he’d been given by one of the officers, which sat on the table between them. “Tell me your version.” He’d told Team Skull time and time again that doing shit like stealing Pokémon was beyond his jurisdiction, not a bunch of out of work NEETs and vandals. And they still insisted on doing shit like this.

“That jackass challenged me to a Pokémon battle, even though Gobs was exhausted after I’d beaten a couple trainers already. And I told him to fuck off, but he insisted I’d met his eyes even though I _hadn’t_ , and. I dunno. I panicked.” She rubbed the back of her neck and sighed, slouching over her coffee and sucking down half the whipped cream. “I was worried if I called the police, they’d assume I’d started it and make me bear the blame. I guess I did make a pretty stupid decision.”

“You stole his Pokémon.”

“I grabbed the _ball_ ,” she corrected. “Caught it right out of the air before he could pull out whatever it was, and I told him he could have it back if he fucked off, and if not, I was gonna take it and it would be mine. I earned that cash, Nanu. I wasn’t going to let some kid steal it because he’d decided I wanted to fight him.”

Nanu grunted, and opened the folder. He read through the witness reports—pretty solid corroboration. Her money she’d earned was there, and he passed it over to her. About 4,000 Poké—a solid amount. She’d earned it.

Tippy folded the bills up into a wad, and shoved them directly into her bra. Nanu snorted and shook his head.

“Buy a wallet,” he told her.

“People steal wallets,” she corrected. “ _I_ steal wallets. Bra's safer.”

“The next time it happens, you can always call me, or at the very least demand that he let you heal your Golbat first. If something comes up, you would much rather be the one who has to go for help to get your money back than be the person getting arrested.”

“And what about bail?”

“Do I look like I care?” Nanu continued to drink his coffee. “You aren't getting arrested for anything. You didn't do shit wrong. You wanna pay me back for hauling my ass over here at bedtime, do me a favor. I need to change this leaky tile in my ceiling. You can do that, and help me prune the garden. Community service or whatever.” He tossed her back her Golbat's ball.

Tippy snorted. “Are you my community now, Officer?”

“My driver’s license has me living in Po town, so yeah. According to the local authorities, I am.”

“Nanu, you _are_ the local authorities.”

“So? Local authorities gotta live somewhere.”

 

 

He’d long since set up the holding cell in the station as a sort of guest bedroom, and Tippy crashed there for the night. The following day, as promised, she changed the ceiling tile—and a few others around it, sweeping out the ceiling as she went—and he set her up with the lawnmower during a break in the rain. Lesson learned, and with a renewed promise to please just call someone next time, he sent her on her way.

Three days after that, Nanu was washing his dishes after reheating the takeout that Acerola had run by the night before, when the door to the police station got kicked in. “Don’t fucking do that,” Nanu said, not looking up from his dishes. “If you break my hinges one more time, you’re going to replace them and I’m _not_ telling you how.”

“Shut up, old man,” Guzma replied. His attitude towards Nanu was always a delicate mix of casual indifference, contrite annoyance, horny thirst, and a drop or two of genuine respect. Nanu counted himself pretty honored by the last one, since as far as he could tell, Guzma’s attitude towards humanity _et al_ was general simmering heat level of loathing. Outside, the weather had turned from the usual drizzle to a proper crashing storm, so Guzma stopped at the door to kick off his soaking boots, hang up his raincoat, before he came over, shaking water out of his hair like he was a Lycanroc.

He came over to Nanu, still damp, and pulled him over by his collar to kiss him. They were the same height but Guzma was bigger than he was, and he used his weight to mash Nanu into the counter, leaning next to him to pin him in. Nanu had heard about people who kissed like they were drowning, or kissed like they wanted to eat you.

Guzma kissed like he was blackout drunk and Nanu was holding his hair out of the toilet so he could hurl.

“Heard you gave Tips a hand,” Guzma said, after he let Nanu go. Nanu grunted. “Wanted to say thanks.”

“Don’t need to. They’re good kids.”

“I _wanted_ ,” Guzma emphasized, dragging on Nanu’s belt loops and kneeling down onto the tile floor, “to say _thanks_.”

Nanu knew better than to argue; rolled his eyes. Trust Guzma to come up with some explanation for everything he ever did that wasn't general jackassery. He just grinned, huffed a laugh, and tangled his hand into Guzma’s thick hair.

After, Guzma kissed him without washing his mouth out. “Disgusting,” Nanu told him, without heat. Guzma just grinned at him, kissed the corner of his mouth. It was his _my favorite Kahuna thinks I have potential_ smile, the one he’d flashed at Nanu twenty years before and now had morphed into _my favorite Kahuna thinks I still have potential despite being a shithead and also probably thinks I’m cute_ , neither of which was untrue. “Are you staying?”

“No, I got shit to do tonight.” He pulled away, and Nanu tried not to be disappointed. “Just wanted to thank you for that.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not letting someone innocent get charged with something for some bullshit reason like looking dangerous in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Nanu shook his head, righted his trousers. “Don't let anybody start in on that shit for real, you hear me?”

“Yeah, sure.” Nanu pursed his lips, but didn’t hammer on it harder. He knew Guzma’d heard. “I’ll bring it up. You still pulling all the Team Skull files to be a benevolent Uncle?” Nanu didn’t bother answering. “I brought the rent money,” Guzma added, to the sounds of him stomping his boots back on. 

He was almost forty—he was a little old to be dropping to the floor and sucking dick. Nanu just smiled at him. Guzma lifted a hand in a wave. “See you later, old man.”

“Call your fucking parents, jackass!” Nanu called after him, as Guzma slammed the door behind him so hard it rattled on the hinges. He stared after the other man in the sudden quiet of the station, and sighed. Went back to cleaning the dishes. There was a check on the front desk of the station.

But he smiled, all the rest of the night.

 

 

A week and a half later, Abby showed up at his door at midafternoon, her eyes baggy and pale despite their mascara and her shoulders slumping with exhaustion. “Someone fucking trashed another house.” she said, holding up a wad of bills, rubberbanded together. “I figured someone had to cover it.”

Nanu stared at her, silent long enough she started to get antsy. “Guzma paid,” he said at last, and she looked startled. It had been the rent but—whatever.

“He—what?”

“You’re fine. Go home and sleep.” Nanu pushed the wad of bills back towards her. “Not your job to pay for it, anyway. Your name ain't on the lease. Isn’t that what you have your boss for?” Abby looked a little lost, hesitating with the money.

“Like, are you _sure_?”

“Po’s paid off and so is whatever idiot made an idiot decision. You give Guzma an earful from me for not mentioning it.” Abby was still staring at him, almost in disbelief. Nanu didn't really give a shit what they did. It wasn’t like anybody else wanted to live in Po town. It poured constantly, there was already a community there and they were perfectly happy as-was, and it didn’t really have any rewarding resources.

The Grunts had banded together before to pay their rent or property damages, but he hadn’t expected someone to cover the whole thing if something slipped through. It was what Guzma did; taking care of his own just like Nanu did.

Gently, Nanu pushed the money back towards Abby’s chest. “Take it,” he told her again. “You need a new laptop, right? Go replace your stuff so you can get some steady income again.” Nanu clasped her on the shoulder. “Guzma’s a good boss. He’ll take care of you kids so you can go out and do something better with your lives.”

“I mean,” Abby said, after a moment, when she found her voice, “he tries. But you’re really better at it.”

“If you call this shit a two-parent household you can mop my floors for a week. Someone has to be a positive influence and it's not gonna be that jackass. Go home, Abby.” He waved her on her way, watched her go back toward Po town, and closed the door behind her.

Guzma had really picked a good bunch, all things considered.

**Author's Note:**

> social media @ noahfronsenburg


End file.
